


Carefully, Correctly Wrong

by Ankaret



Category: Alliance-Union - Cherryh, Profit
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-13
Updated: 2009-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-04 09:43:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ankaret/pseuds/Ankaret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Grant said 'What <i>are</i> you?' to Profit, and I thought 'He's an Alpha azi gone very, very wrong'.  This is the story of how it happened.  Title quotation from <i>Nemesis</i> by Shriekback.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carefully, Correctly Wrong

'What _are_ you?' - Dr Grant, Profit episode 'Healing'.

 

**Cyteen, 2412 AD**  
Gorchow and Grigorovsky was not the sort of company that usually had dealings with Reseune, but they'd come knocking on the door with a big order just at the time when Denys Nye was scrambling to hold the budgets together, to somehow, _anyhow_, keep Reseune afloat until such time as the reborn Ariane Emory could take back her inheritance. Since, on that precise morning, Ariane Emory the second had had a fearsome tantrum, thrown Poo-thing at Denys and retreated behind the door shouting _I want my mama_, and the various manouvrings of Centrists and Abolitionists were making Denys wonder whether he was incubating a gastric ulcer, he was inclined to give G and G's representatives a hearing.

He poured coffee for them all. _Cream_, he hoped they noticed, not powdered creamer. They wouldn't get that at Alphalabs or any of the other azi-mills they frequented. The coffee wouldn't do the putative ulcer any good at all, but the extra punch of caffeine and sugar might just get Denys through this meeting. Besides, any nasties in the stomach-lining could be cleared out at the next session of rejuv, which was already six weeks behind schedule. He folded his hands over his stomach. "And you do understand that you are buying Reseune's time and resources, as well as the patent-protected genesets? Every azi of yours who is birthed here, is an azi of ours delayed for nine months."

"Hence the prices," said the woman from G and G, nastily. "We understand. Just like we understood what you meant when you flew us in to an airstrip that was practically on Planys. If I get complications from fibre inhalation from crossing that _open ground_, I'm setting my medical insurance lawyers on you."

_Just what we need_, Denys thought, _another frivolous lawsuit_. Then again, it might not be frivolous; a demand for throat swabs from every soul in Reseune would necessarily encompass one small dark-haired girl with a PR on the end of her citizen number.

_Unless we hide her in the Town, I suppose. And pray she doesn't demolish the place_. "So long as that's understood," he said emolliently. "I presume you want double redundancy, the spares to be voided after six weeks?"

The woman looked at the silent man in the chair beside her. He scribbled something on his Slate and handed it over to her. She looked displeased. "On the Alphas, yes. We'll take our chances with the Gammas and the Rhos."

"Yes, the Alphas." Denys' heartburn twinged. He _hated_ admitting to inefficiency. When he found out whose mistake this was... well, he'd end up with a hold over someone who was undoubtedly too low in the hierarchy and too slapdash or self-destructive or otherwise _flawed_ in their personality for the pull to be worth it. Some days, he hated CITs. Particularly the ones in his department. "I'm afraid there's been a mistake in transcribing your requirements. My apologies. It says here that you're asking for a batch of four AJ-6784s?"

"We asked for whichever of your available Alpha sets scored highest in numerical reasoning, with secondary attributes as high as possible in organisational finance and strategy."

_And some algorithm somewhere spat out the AJ-6784. Dear God. Computers and azi; they never cease to surprise with their ability to be perfectly and logically wrong_. Denys' ulcer was going to be squealing like a pig by the end of the encounter. He'd share the metaphor with the G and G team, but he doubted any of them knew what a pig was. He spread his plump fingers, making statesmanly shapes against the overstretched fabric of his shirt, and set out to do his best to mollify this mess. "The AJ-6784 set is _technically_ available, yes, but you said, I think, that you require these azi to supervise manual salvage work on previously mothballed stations?"

The G and G representatives scowled at each other, as if wondering who had let that nugget of information out. Eventually, the woman gave a grudging nod.

"In that case, I'd recommend the BQ-449 - one of our most outstandingly stable patented Beta sets, or the new AE-2390s, if you feel your project _requires_ the Rezner scores the Alpha grade provides." They didn't need Alphas, in Denys' estimation; a Gamma could do the job described, and would still probably outscore either of the CITs on the other side of his desk on any standardised test he could administer. But for people making their first Reseune order, up-from-nothing people, _insecure_ people, Alpha meant prestige, and buyers were willing to pay for prestige, just as they were willing to pay for aesthetics. And, right now, Reseune was in no financial position to turn them away.

"The only use we generally find for the AJ-6784s is as an object lesson for young tape designers." Denys chuckled gently. "I had a crack at the problem myself, in my youth. I think young Jules Carnath is trying now. You see them about the Town occasionally - charming small boys, such beautiful eyelashes - I wouldn't know what they look like grown, though of course it's all specified in the geneset."

"Your brochure says that the AJ-6784 were intended to thrive in corporate environments," said the man opposite. It was the first time he had spoken; his voice was a bubbling rasp, as if his vocal cords hadn't quite made it through the last round of rejuv. "It said that they derive satisfaction from the corporation's success. What we want is someone who can _become_ Gorchow and Grigorovsky, and maintain the brand out on these remote stations with minimal intervention. Weren't the AJ-6784s designed for that?"

Actually, the AJ-6784s had been intended for special forces, but Denys wasn't about to share the details of _that_ debacle with anyone who didn't have a valid security clearance and the credit to buy him several large drinks. The only good thing that had come out of it was that the military had paid heavily for an exclusivity clause, and the thought of losing all those credits had dissuaded the manically driven and already dying James Carnath from giving his precious, his unborn, his pain-in-the-ass-to-everyone _project_ Ari the first a soft-spoken, dark-haired, _total fucking sociopath_ to follow her around along with Florian and Catlin. The very idea made Denys' ulcer twinge plaintively.

"They don't do well without expert supervision," he said, with restraint. "Even with frequent intervention and the most up-to-date possible tape, they are - inappropriately adaptive. _Resourceful_, yes - even innovative, if one can use such a term of azi, in their _use_ of resources - but in need of constant corrective supervision, and certainly not suited to long-term life in azi communities."

_And if you can't figure out_ put four of those on a remote station and you will end up with either a takeover or a bloodbath _out of that, may God have mercy on your souls_.

The man and the woman looked at each other. "These AE-2390s are the newest thing?" said the woman sharply

Ah. _Psych_. She wanted the latest thing. Denys could work with that. He nodded gently. "Of course, we only provide them to clients with whom we have a _special_ relationship..."

"We have our instructions," said the man. Denys, used to familiar accents and the soft murmur of azi voices, found his gurgling voice almost distressingly uncomfortable to listen to; it was like a harsh blast of air from the Novgorod subway being blown straight into his face. "The highest scoring on those given parameters. Are you too good to sell them to us, or what?"

It could, of course, all be an Abolitionist plot, if it wasn't that the Abolitionists had been playing the poor-downtrodden-azis card for all they were worth lately. Denys had been watching their strategies, and he couldn't see how letting an AJ-6784 - let alone _four_ of them - loose in the human population would do anything to raise _sympathy_ for azis as helpless victims of the evil Reseune high command, eyelashes or no eyelashes.

He looked at the financial predictions. They were as dire as they had been half an hour ago.

And after all, it wasn't as if events on a distant station were likely to have any repercussions in _his_ lifetime.

\--

**Earth, 1975 AD**  
Jimmy AJ-6784 curled up to go to sleep. _Sleep on your right side_, the soothing voice on board the ship had always told him and the other AJ-6784s, and he had obeyed it. The box he had to sleep in here was actually _larger_ than the bunk he'd occupied on the ship, and had room to do calisthenics in and everything. He even had CIT food instead of the usual shipboard slop. There were apples. He liked apples.

They were supposed to be doing the thing where they took a computer apart and put it back together at this hour, two teams of two, competing on time and accuracy. But he couldn't do that, because the other AJ-6784s were dead.

His Super was dead too. The _ship_ was dead. All of that was worrying, but the man who he supposed must be his new Super had told him not to talk about it, and he was a CIT and knew best. Jimmy's old Super would have cuddled him and told him he'd done well, and asked him if he wanted tape, and talked him through the relaxation procedure he'd always done ever since he could remember, the one with the sand and the rake and the little garden. But he guessed he was an Older now, and Olders had different kinds of Supers.

His new Super had just talked about someone called Jesus. Jimmy didn't know about any of that. His Super had tried to cuff Jimmy, even when Jimmy bowed and called him ser, polite, Older-like, like he'd been taught. Jimmy guessed he'd need to do better, and then his Super wouldn't cuff him.

But at least he had tape. It was primitive tape, but he'd been told that he might encounter that; he was an Alpha, he could deal with it. He ought to have drugs, and the tape ought to be murmuring gently in his ear as well as playing through a screen, but it was tape, nonetheless, telling him how the world should be, telling him what he had to do.

He lay curled up on his side, in the box, and paid attention to the tape.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [How Amy Carnath Conquered The World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28584) by [Ankaret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ankaret/pseuds/Ankaret)




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